One more to file under “This is not a gun blog, but . . .” a public school teacher in California pulled the trigger on his firearm and was surprised to discover a bullet came out. Guys, this is how guns are designed to work: Pull trigger => Series of deadly events ensues. What happened in this classroom was not an “accident.” What happened is that the weapon did exactly what it was supposed to do. For those of you… Read more

A seventeen year old girl in Texas gave birth at home alone, stabbed the baby, and stowed it the neighbor’s shed. She faces possible charges of capital murder. But really? Just practicing medicine without a license. If, say, Congress passed the Born Alive Abortion Survivor’s Protection Act, things might be different. Then we’d have a law saying that you absolutely must finish stabbing your baby before it comes out of the womb. But for the moment? What this girl did is… Read more

So this was my online experience of the most recent school shooting: One of my Facebook friends was providing live updates from the site, relayed from her daughter who was getting the news from friends at the school. Meanwhile, three other of my Facebook friends, from three different parts of the US, were providing updates from their on-going efforts to get their children’s schools to finally do something about their kids being bullied. It was surreal and depressing and has… Read more

Up at the Times is an article on how to fall in love. The author used the technique developed in a laboratory study on whether it was possible to create emotional closeness between two people intentionally. Anecdotally, some people who have used the method have in fact fallen in love with each other. You don’t need science to know this, but it’s good that science is confirming what your grandmother could have told you: Spending time getting to know another… Read more

Last night the kids were up watching figure skating when the new 50 Shades movie trailer came on. I stood there astonished as the words “50 Shades” flashed on the screen of an otherwise innocuous-looking trailer, but since it started out clean I hoped they’d manage to skip the BDSM visuals and leave the kids in the dark about what the movie was really about. Nope. No such luck. Nice. Good ol’ family viewing. And before NBC gets all “but… Read more

One of the knee-jerk reactions to the Turpin family child abuse case is to call for closer scrutiny of homeschoolers. Otherwise, how will anyone be able to know if these children are being neglected or abused? Let’s see what the Washington Post has to contribute: Not long after the family arrived in Fort Worth, an older girl tried to run away but was returned by a local resident, Vinyard, the Turpins’ former neighbor, told the L.A. Times. He said he and his… Read more

For those just joining this discussion (as I am): Elizabeth Bruenig at the Washington Post argues against a GOP proposal to raise the work requirements for receiving government benefits. There are many plausible reasons for making such an argument, but . . . Darwin Catholic observes that her justification is not a sound one. I’ll pause here and say that I find this argument from Ms. Bruenig to be entirely true: The lion’s share of poor people are elderly, children… Read more

A friend posed the question many are asking: Why on earth did Cardinal Law receive the funeral that he did? She was looking for someone to justify that decision in a way that didn’t make her seethingly angry. I am not the person for that task, since I don’t know the man and have nothing to say in his favor. Nor do I have information on how the funeral rated in comparison to what other men holding similar office are… Read more

My husband once had a business trip to a notoriously crime-ridden city. The client he was visiting advised him, “Keep $20 in your pocket when you’re on the train. If someone holds you up, you give them the $20 and they won’t shoot you, they’ll move on.” There was a price on your life in that town, and that price was $20. Apparently in the Netherlands these days, the going rate is 5,000 Euros. That’s what normal people “cost” society, according… Read more

If you are feeling penitential, you can read the transcript of the Supreme Court oral arguments in the Masterpiece Cakeshop trial. It opens with an exercise in muddled thinking, but there are moments of clarity. Particularly relevant is the question of how Colorado has treated the question of religious discrimination. From pp. 98-99 of the transcript: MS. WAGGONER: . . . I have three brief points in rebuttal: First of all, the bias of the Commission is also evidenced in… Read more